Key Questions

The aim of the fund would be to strengthen the region’s economic attractiveness and its desirability as a place to live. It should help to: preserve the region’s industrial character, strengthen innovation among its businesses, support its academic institutions, equip it with an up-to-date transport network and digital infrastructure, and foster a lively civil society that retains local residents while also attracting new ones.

In each of these areas, it should be possible to use the available funds in a flexible manner (i.e. to shift funding between areas), and funds that are not withdrawn should not expire (i.e. funding should be transferable to subsequent years).

Raising the attractiveness of a region means more than just promoting its economy, academic institutions and infrastructure. Ultimately, the vibrancy of a place depends on art, culture, lived traditions and the quality of civil society. These factors require ongoing support, which can be guaranteed in the short term through the Structural Change Fund and in the long term through developing a foundation with a strong endowment.

With a renewable electricity target of 40% in France and 65% in Germany by 2030, the two countries will significantly increase their production of wind and solar energy. Their conventional power plant fleet will have to be resized accordingly to avoid stranded costs.

A nuclear fleet exceeding 40 GW in 2030 would increase the national electricity export surplus and additionally postpone the achievement of the objective of reducing the share of nuclear power to 50% beyond 2030. The profitability of a nuclear fleet greater than 50 GW would not be assured in 2030, even when assuming a 60% increase in French export capacity, a doubling of interconnectors capacity in Europe and a CO2 price of 30 euros per ton of CO2.

In this case, Germany’s electricity trade balance with its neighbours is balanced. The new planned target of 65% renewable energy in electricity consumption by 2030 will ensure that Germany will not depend on undesired electricity imports while phasing-out coal.

It enjoys broad public support and is driven by four main political objectives: combatting climate change, avoiding nuclear risks, improving energy security, and guaranteeing competitiveness and growth.

Wind and solar energy are now cost-competitive with conventional energy sources for new investments. These technologies, however, impact power systems, making increased system flexibility crucial. Fossil power plants currently deliver the needed flexibility; increasingly other options (demand side management, storage,… ) will become more important.

Given the transformative nature of the Energiewende, investment, growth, and employment are shifting towards new low-carbon sectors. Renewable energy and energy efficiency are providing several hundred thousand jobs, while jobs in the nuclear and coal sectors are declining. A broad consensus on the phasing out of coal is needed to accompany this restructuring process.

In 2014, for the third year running, worldwide investment in new renewable capacity exceeded investment in fossil-fuel power. Many other countries in Europe and beyond have set ambitious renewable energy targets. The challenges faced by Germany are therefore a preview of what is likely to occur in several other countries in the medium to long-term.

As part of Europe’s renewable energy expansion plans, the PLEF countries will strive to draw 32 to 34 percent of their electricity from wind and solar by 2030. The weather dependency of these technologies impacts power systems, making increased system flexibility crucial.

Different weather patterns across Europe will decorrelate single power generation peaks, yielding geographical smoothing effects. Wind and solar output is generally much less volatile at an aggregated level and extremely high and low values disappear. For example, in France the maximum hourly ramp resulting from wind fluctuation in 2030 is 21 percent of installed wind capacity, while the Europe-wide maximum is only at 10 percent of installed capacity.

When no trading options exist, hours with high domestic wind and solar generation require that generation from renewables be stored or curtailed in part. With market integration, decorrelated production peaks across countries enable exports to regions where the load is not covered. By contrast, a hypothetical national autarchy case has storage or curtailment requirements that are ten times as high.

A more flexible power system is required for the transition to a low-carbon system. Challenging situations are manifold, comprising the ability to react over shorter and longer periods. To handle these challenges, the structure of the conventional power plant park and the way power plants operate will need to change. Renewables, conventional generation, grids, the demand side and storage technologies must all become more responsive to provide flexibility.

The existing climate targets for 2030 imply a renewables share of some 50 percent in the electricity mix, with wind and PV contributing some 30 percent. The reason is simple: they are by far the cheapest zero-carbon power technologies. Thus, continuous investments in these technologies are required for a cost-efficient transition; so are continuous efforts to make the power system more flexible at the supply and demand side.

A more flexible energy-only market and a stable carbon price will however not be enough to manage the required transition to a power system with high shares of wind and solar PV. Additional instruments are needed.

Together, they form the Power Market Pentagon; all of them are required for a functioning market design. Their interplay ensures that despite legacy investments in high-carbon an inflexible technologies, fundamental uncertainties about market dynamics, and CO2 prices well below the social cost of carbon, the transition to a reliable, decarbonised power system occurs cost-efficiently.

Synthetic fuel production technologies can be used to manufacture chemical precursors, produce high-temperature process heat, as well as to power air, sea and possibly road transport. Because synthetic fuels are more expensive than the direct use of electricity, their eventual importance in other sectors is still uncertain.

Instead, renewable power plants must be built explicity for the purpose of producing synthetic fuels, either in Germany (i.e. as offshore wind) or in North Africa and the Middle East (i.e. as onshore wind and/or PV). The development of synthetic fuel plants in oil- and gas-exporting countries would provide those nations with a post-fossil business model.

The aimed-for cost reductions require considerable, early and continuous investments in electrolysers and CO2 absorbers. Without political intervention or high CO2 pricing, however, this is unlikely, because the cost of producing synthetic fuels will remain greater than the cost of extracting conventional fossil fuels.

Electricity-based fuels are not an alternative to fossil fuels but they can supplement technologies with lower conversion losses, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps. Application-specific adoption targets and binding sustainability regulations can help to ensure that PtG and PtL fuels benefit the climate while also providing a reliable foundation for long-term planning.

A coal-based system would only be significantly less expensive if extremely low CO₂ prices are expected in 2050 (20 euros/t). Similarly, a natural gas-based system would only be significantly less expensive if gas prices are low and CO₂ prices are not high (i.e. below 100 euros/t).

Variable costs (largely for fuel and CO₂) account for 30 to 67 percent of the total costs of the fossil-based systems. By contrast, variable costs represent just 5 percent of costs in the renewables-based systems.

A renewables based energy transition can thus be considered efficient climate policy, as CO₂ damage costs are estimated a lot higher (80 euros/t over the short-term, and at 145 to 260 euros/t over the long term).

In this scenario, the importance of natural gas remains roughly the same as today, while oil heating is almost entirely replaced by heat pumps. District heating is another key factor. By 2030, district heating will primarily draw on heat from CHP plants, but it will increasingly rely on solar thermal energy, deep geothermal energy, industrial waste heat, and large-scale heat pumps as well.

Energy efficiency is a pillar of decarbonisation because it makes climate protection affordable. Improving energy use efficiency in buildings requires a green retrofit rate of 2 per cent and a high retrofit depth. But current trends in building modernisation fall far short of these targets.

To close this gap, heat pumps must be installed early on not only in new buildings but also in existing buildings, for example as bivalent systems with fossil fuel-fired boilers for peak demand. If heat pumps can be flexibly managed and existing storage heaters replaced with efficient heating units by 2030, the 5 to 6 million heat pumps will affect only a slight rise on peak demand that thermal power plants must cover.

To reach the 2030 climate protection target, additional electricity consumption in the heating and traffic sector must be covered by CO2-free energy sources. But the new renewable energy capacities stipulated in EEG 2017 will not suffice to do so.

The calculation of these costs varies tremendously depending on the specific power system and methodologies applied. Moreover, opinions diverge concerning how to attribute certain costs and benefits, not only to wind and solar energy but to the system as a whole.

Certain costs for building electricity grids and balancing can be clearly classified without much discussion as costs that arise from the addition of new renewable energy. In the literature, these costs are often estimated at +5 to +13 EUR/MWh, even with high shares of renewables.

When new solar and wind plants are added to a power system, they reduce the utilization of the existing power plants, and thus their revenues. Thus, in most cases, the cost for “backup” power increases. Calculations of these effects range between -6 and +13 EUR/MWh in the case of Germany at a penetration of 50 percent wind and PV, depending especially on the CO? cost.

In particular, additional generation from renewables in the Nordics – reflected in the Nordic electricity balance - will increase the value of transmission capacity. There is a lot of potential for trade, due to hourly differences in wholesale electricity prices throughout the year.

In general, additional integration will lead to slightly higher wholesale electricity prices in the Nordics and to slightly lower prices in Germany. But this will be counteracted by the decreasing price effect that higher wind shares in the Nordics have on the wholesale power market.

This strongly impacts the incentives of market players such as electricity producers or consumers (e.g., energy-intensive industries) for or against increased integration. Distributiona leffects need to be taken into account for creating public acceptance for new lines and for the cross-border allocation of network investments.

In particular, additional generation from renewables in the Nordics – reflected in the Nordic electricity balance - will increase the value of transmission capacity. There is a lot of potential for trade, due to hourly differences in wholesale electricity prices throughout the year.

In general, additional integration will lead to slightly higher wholesale electricity prices in the Nordics and to slightly lower prices in Germany. But this will be counteracted by the decreasing price effect that higher wind shares in the Nordics have on the wholesale power market.3

This strongly impacts the incentives of market players such as electricity producers or consumers (e.g., energy-intensive industries) for or against increased integration. Distributiona leffects need to be taken into account for creating public acceptance for new lines and for the cross-border allocation of network investments.

The reason for this paradox is not to be found in thedecision to phase out nuclear power – the decrease of nuclear generation is fully offset by an increasedgeneration from renewables. Rather, the paradox is caused by a fuel switch from gas to coal.

Since 2010, coal and CO2 prices have decreased, whilegas prices have increased. Accordingly, Germany’s coal-fired power plants (both new and old) are able to produceat lower costs than gas-fired power plants in Germany and in the neighbouring electricity markets thatare coupled with the German market. This has yielded record export levels and rising emissions in Germany.

Sharp decreases in generation fromlignite and hard coal of 62 and 80 percent, respectively, are expected in the next 15 years while theshare of gas in electricity generation will have to increase from 11 to 22 percent. This goes in line with thegovernments’ renewables and climate targets for 2030.

In the next 10 to 20 years the flexibility required in the power system can be provided for by other, more cost-effective technologies such as flexible power plants, demand side management. New storage is required only at very high shares of renewable energies.

New markets for battery storage and power to gas technologies are expected to emerge, especially in the transport and chemical sector. Storage developed in these sectors can enable further flexibility for the electricity system as an additional service. Research and development as well as market incentive programs should maximize the system-supporting contribution of new storage technologies.

Storage can already today deliver several ancillary services at competitive costs. Flexibility markets – such as the ancillary services or future capacity markets – should therefore be designed such that they are technology-neutral.

Each saved kilowatt-hour of electricity reduces fuel and CO2 emissions, as well as investment costs forfossil and renewable power plants and power grid expansion. If electricity consumption can be lowered by10 to 35 percent by 2035 compared to the Reference scenario outlined in the study, the costs for electricitygeneration will reduced by 10 to 20 billion euros2012.

One saved kilowatt-hour of electricity would lead to reduced electrical system costs of between 11 to 15euro cents2012 by 2035, depending on the underlying assumptions. Many efficiency measures wouldgenerate lower costs than these savings, and would therefore be beneficial from an overall economicperspective.

A significant increase in energy efficiency can significantly reduce the long-term need to expand thetransmission grid: between 1,750 and 5,000 km in additional transmission lines will be needed by 2050,down from 8,500 km under the “business as usual” scenario.

Reducing power consumption by 15 percent compared to the Reference scenario would lower CO2 emissionsby 40 million tonnes and would reduce spending on coal and natural gas imports by 2 billion euros2012 in2020.

Solely in terms of cost, a few years of delays for the additional transmission lines foreseen in the German Grid Development Planning act would not be critical. Further expansion of renewables does not have to wait for these new transmission lines.